• 1014/2 Havlíčkova Street

Masaryk Station I

During the night of 7 to 8 May, the SS, equipped with heavy machinery, cannons, and tanks, began to besiege Masaryk Station. In the early morning, the station and its surroundings came under fire. Some of the insurgents began to retreat, but some took cover, along with civilian families, in adjacent buildings, particularly in Lidový dům and Hybernie Palace.

Following heavy fighting, the German troops conquered the station, strongly damaging it with gun and tank firing. The Nazis tracked down about 150 individuals in their temporary hideouts and lined them up on the platform and against the walls of the station building. Women were separated from men and lined on the opposite side of the hall. The men were lined in a triple line, and some were shot on the spot in the presence of the women. The Nazis randomly selected individuals from the rest, whom they drove towards the building under signal box 2, where they shot them. The next 24 men were executed the same way near the station hall.

In total, 67 people were murdered at Masaryk Station: the insurgents, as well as clerks, travellers, and apprentices from the station restaurant. When the station was set on fire, the SS relocated with the captives to the military quarters of George of Poděbrady, and the surviving civilians became part of the prisoner exchange. A memorial plaque was installed in the station vestibule in honour of the victims of fascism. The terror at Masaryk Station is among the other massacres carried out by the Nazis during the Prague Uprising. (Prazacka, Úsobská street, The Massacre in Lahovice, Deer moat)

Entrance to the building of Hybernské (currently Masaryk) Station from Hybernská Street, April–May 1945. Museum of Prague, unknown photographer.

Part of Masaryk Station damaged during the Prague Uprising, May 1945. Museum of Prague, photo by Bohumil Černý.